


Breaking the Rules

by auselysium



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: After the accident, Fluff, M/M, bedside scene, sort of, worried robert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-09
Updated: 2015-04-09
Packaged: 2018-03-21 23:59:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3707955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auselysium/pseuds/auselysium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a quiet night on the ward when a man shows up looking desperately for one of Darren's patients.  Darren is more than happy to break the rules for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breaking the Rules

It is a quiet night on the ward.

The kind that allows for the nurses scheduled for the overnight shift to spend time restocking bandages and taking inventory on syringes and medicine supplies in between checks on their patients vitals.  Butterfly soft fingers on pulses, near silent adjustments to IV drips, every step vigilant so as to not wake the person in their care.

Darren had just finished one such check, finding Mr. Hollin’s blood pressure to be fine, if not a little low.  He makes a mark on the chart, making sure the doctor will see it in the morning, when he notices a tall, blond man, standing in the middle of the hall looking pale and out of place and positively desolate.

“Can I help you?”  Darren asks with a hand to the man’s shoulder.  The same caretaker’s touch that he used on his sleeping patient just moments before makes this man nearly jump out of his skin.

“Um,” he stammers before clearing his throat.  “I’m looking for someone.  For Aaron Livesy.”  

So not a psych patient, then.

“I’m sorry but visiting hours ended at 9,”  Darren says, gently.  “You’ll have to come back in the morning.”

“I know,” he says.  He shakes his head as if trying to come to his senses.  “I don’t mean to make any trouble, but…Is he here?  I just, I told him I’d come as soon as I could.  And I couldn’t get here earlier.”

The man runs a hand through his hair, becoming more and more agitated as the moments pass.  
  
“Are you related to Mr. Livesey?”  Darren asks, again using his most professional, soothing voice.

“No, it’s...complicated.”  The man says, with a pained expression.  “I was the one who found him yesterday but his family...they wouldn’t like it if they knew I was here.”  

There is something about the desperate look in his eye that hits close to home for Darren.  Something that hints at secret, unapproved of feelings, of a need for acceptance in the face of unflinching animosity.  He looks the man up and down once and wonders how he didn’t pick up on it before.  Darren is usually so good as sussing out a fellow comrade in arms, so to speak.

“Well, let’s take a look and see what room he’s in, shall we?”

A massive sigh rattles the other man’s rib cage.  “Thanks.”  

With the room found and Mr. Livesey’s status of “stable” confirmed, Darren shows the man into his room.  He adjusts the lights; low enough so as not to wake the patient but high enough that his guest that can see the color has crept back into his cheeks, even under the cuts and bruises.

Darren pulls up a chair next to the bed, one that the man falls into gratefully.  Without hesitating, he picks up one of Mr. Livesey’s hands, clasping it between his large palms.  He lifts them to his lips, whispering something Darren can’t hear before pressing a soft kiss to the fingertips.

Darren is used to these bedside moments and he tries not to intrude on their privacy, checking the level of fluid in the IV bag instead, but his heart clenches nonetheless at the tenderness of it, the obvious intimacy these two men share.

He thinks for a moment of the intimacy he missed by mere moments recently with Finn, what he still might share if a certain village blogger can stop meddling where she doesn’t belong.  And if Darren can find a way to let go of all the very real pain that meddling had caused.  

“Will he be alright?”

Darren turns back, having almost forgotten he wasn’t on his own.

“His ankles been set. It was a nasty break though so they had to go in to set it.”

“They had to operate?”  The man blanches.  Darren nods.  

“He’ll be in that cast for a while.  He was hypothermic when he came in, dehydrated.  But yeah,” He gives the man a warm, reassuring smile, one he’s perfected in his line of work.  “He’ll be fine.”

The man nods, as if trying to internalize that information and actually let himself believe it.

“You two been together long?”  Darren asks casually.

“We’re not together,”  The man snaps his well practiced, defensive answer.  Darren knows that kind of deflection well, having been on the giving and receiving end of it many times.  But then the man's wide shoulders fall a bit.  He looks at Darren with a cautiousness but also a trust that the scrubs and the promise of “patient confidentiality” afford him.  “I don’t know,”  he says softly. “Four months or so.  But I told you it’s complicated.”

Darren hadn’t failed to notice the wedding ring he’s wearing.

“It’s it always?”  Darren says simply, suddenly very interested in hearing a certain someone’s voice before the night gets too late.  “I can leave you two on your own if you like.”

“I wouldn’t want to get you in trouble.  I’ve had enough of that today,”  He adds almost to himself, a wide-eyed bleakness suddenly falling across his face.

“It’s no trouble.”  Darren insists.  

Besides, as Darren slips through the door, watching the blond man reach out across the bed, curling his arms around his still sleeping partner so he can rest his head against the slow rise and fall of his chest, Darren can’t think of any better excuse to break the rules.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a challenge to myself to complete something TONIGHT.
> 
> Have no idea where this came from (i.e. Darren POV, discussing Finn/Darren etc.) but hope you enjoy nonetheless.
> 
> Find me tumblr at auselysium. :)


End file.
